A. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of modeling three-dimensional objects in a computer and more particularly to a method for generating a single continuous surface or mesh representing the object from a cloud of points.
B. Description of Related Art
Computers can be used to generate virtual three-dimensional models of objects. Such models can be represented in a variety of ways. One common way is as a continuous surface of adjacent triangles. The triangles are planar surfaces defined by three points. The points form vertices of the triangles. The points have known three-dimensional coordinates.
In some applications, the construction of a single surface representing an object from a cloud of points can be quite difficult since the cloud of points may have “noise”, i.e., points whose 3D coordinates are inaccurate or stray, and the cloud of points may be relatively inhomogeneous.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,463,344 describes a method for representation of a surface of a tooth, but the method is quite different from the present method. The method of the '761 is based on a parameterization of the surface, based on a predefined grid defined by parameters u, v. The present method does not depend on parameters and a predefined grid.
Published PCT application WO 01/80761, assigned to OraMetrix, Inc., assignee of the present invention, describes a scanner for scanning teeth and a method of constructing a cumulative registration model of the teeth from scan data comprising a cloud of points. The entire contents of WO 01/80761 is incorporated by reference herein. The application describes a method for constructing a single continuous surface representation of the teeth, but uses extraneous virtual tooth models retrieved from memory in this process. The present invention, in contrast, does not require extraneous virtual objects to construct the single surface representation.